News 5/10/12

e-MDs reports a 20% increase in revenue and a 10% increase in employee count over the last year. The company also says it was profitable for 2011, maintained cash reserves, and invested nearly 40% of its annual revenue into R&D.

CalHIPSO reports that over 7,700 enrolled providers are in various stages of EHR implementation, including 210 that have demonstrated MU. The REC also says it has initiated a second round of EHR vendor selection, building on its initial group of seven vendors.

Northeast Georgia Physicians Group selects Phytel’s Atmosphere platform to help transform its 30 ambulatory care clinics into PCMHs.

MHMD, the physician network of Memorial Hermann Healthcare System (TX), begins work with TransforMED to transform six of its medical practices into PCMHs.

The 17-physician Florida Cardiology selects dashboardMD to provide evidence-based PM management services, including BI dashboards and healthcare analytics.

Advanced Data Systems collaborates with clinical laboratory LabXpress to offer an orders and results interface between ADS’s MedicsDocAssistantEHR and LabXpress.

athenahealth earns the #4 spot on Forbes annual Fast Tech 25 list of “growth kings.” Quality Systems, the parent company of NextGen, was ranked 19th.

ONC launches the Health IT Dashboard, which presents key information about the impact of federal policies and programs related to HIT. I like pretty graphics, and this one detailing key performance indicators for RECs caught my eye. Although according to the numbers at the top, only 11% of providers enrolled in RECs have demonstrated MU, leaving me to wonder how that compares to the original goals of the ONC and RECs.

Sermo reveals that its Real-Time Medicine Mobile App for Physicians accounts for 45% of total traffic on its platform. One of the app’s most popular features is iConsult, which allows physicians to take or add a photograph at a patient’s bedside and ask for opinions from relevant specialists. Sermo says 77% of iConsults are answered within an hour and often as quick as one minute, with each inquiry averaging 12 responses.

ONC releases a handbook for physicians and their practice staff that discusses the importance of privacy and security to EHR MU and how to integrate best practices into daily operations.

Physician social networking site Doximity appoints Linked-in co-founder Konstantin Guericke to its board of directors.

E-mail Inga.

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Mobile.

News 5/8/12

Allscripts’ Board of Directors approves a Stockholder Rights Plan that would allow stockholders to buy Allscripts’ common stock at a 50% discount in the event of a hostile takeover attempt. Allscripts says the move was not done in response to any current hostile takeover attempts, and, the current stock price does not adequately reflect the company’s long term potential. The plan effectively means management has to approve any takeover, which seems to favor the management team over shareholders. Perhaps a hostile takeover that includes a premium share price might be more financially beneficial in the eyes of some stockholders.

Apex Medical Group d/b/a Nephrology Consultants (TN) agrees to pay $4.36 million to settle allegations that it submitted false and fraudulent claims to government health programs through a pattern of up-coding for various physician services or billing for services never rendered. The case stems from a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2005 which alleged that the physician owners-managers inaccurately filed claims to Medicare and TennCare for a variety dialysis services. The owners settled without admitting wrongdoing. The whistleblower will received over $400,000 as part of the settlement.

Emdeon acquires TC3 Health, a provider of cost containment solutions for healthcare payers.

Southern Brain & Spine (LA) selects SRS EHR for its 10 providers.

RCM provider PracticeMax acquires KLO Professional Billing, a provider of billing and PM services for physician offices.

The 25-doctor Valley ENT (AZ) selects ChartLogic’s EHR Suite.

Bloomberg Businessweek profiles eClinicalWorks CEO Girish Navani and his company’s community analytics offering, which provides reporting, alerting, and messaging capabilities for population health management. Navani, by the way, predicts eCW’s 2012 revenues will hit $250 million.

Physician offices added 5,500 of the healthcare industry’s 19,000 new jobs in April.

The AMA issues a reminder to physicians that June 30, 2012 is the deadline to report on at least 10 electronic prescriptions to avoid the 2013 Medicare e-prescribing program penalty. Physicians unable to meet the program requirements can apply for a hardship exemption by June 30.

E-mail Inga.

DOCtalk by Dr. Gregg 5/4/12

Crash and (Just a Little) Burn

Earlier this week was pretty darn technically frustrating for me. I had a combo-fiasco happen where multiple servers and “uninterruptible” power supplies failed when we took three power hits within minutes of each other (on a nice, sunny day, no less!) This led to our locally-hosted system going down for a day and requiring full database restoration and the rebuild of half a day’s patient data from notes, memory, e-prescriptions, etc.

Then, as I was writing a blog to describe the problem and talk about how we dealt with it, I had the strangest issue with Word. It saved the post – which had the above title – but the post itself was an old one. In other words, the title saved correctly, but not the body of the story. (I’m still scratching my head on that one.)

But you’ll note that though I’ve kept that original title, I have veered far afield from my original content. Recent news about my EHR vendor – well, they’re still sort of my EHR vendor – has usurped both this post’s title and content. You’ll see why I felt the title was worth repurposing if you continue to read just a bit further. (And, if Mr. H consents to posting this — which he may not – since the news I’m about to add will be “unsubstantiated”.)

Many of you know that there really isn’t much love loss between Allscripts and me. When I broke the news that they were about to announce the sunsetting of my chosen EHR, Peak Practice, on October 5, 2010 (I remember because it was my birthday), their powers-that-were weren’t happy with me. I haven’t been much of a fan of what I’ve seen from them since and haven’t been terribly shy about saying so.

Along comes the news about the failed power coup, subsequent loss of old Eclipsys folks from dismissal or resignation, and the serious stock price tankingness. Yes, there was a little “I knew it would happen” smirk on my face for just a moment, but it didn’t last, as I also have friends and colleagues who either work there or who use their software. I know that this isn’t good news for them, so my personal “Yo, it’s karma, dudes” moment didn’t last.

But, here’s the kicker. I have it from an exquisitely good resource – no, it’s not an Allscripts employee – that they are about to “go legacy” with their Enterprise product.

My source also sent along his/her thoughts on the meltdown, which I’m going to share verbatim here:

Eight years of bad decisions are coming home to roost:

1. Repeated acquisitions at premium price for technologies and systems that do not integrate.

2. Senior management constructed of deal makers, attorneys, and marketers. Barely a single product or clinical person among them.

3. Inability to retain key technical and clinical personnel due to (2) above.

4. No coherent strategy other than to acquire and grow revenue through acquisition of disparate businesses.

The effects of these four interrelated factors ripple throughout Allscripts and its customers. Tullman is the driving force behind this. It will not change as long as he remains in charge.

I really have nothing to gain by putting this out, and even the momentary sense of “See, if you hadn’t sunsetted my dear old Peak Practice, none of this would have happened” is completely overridden by my sorrow for the end users of Allscripts products who are the real losers (well, them and all those now significantly less well-invested shareholders.) I’m not sure if there are any real winners here.

Maybe I should have retitled this “Crash and (A Whole Lotta) Burn”.

From the trenches…

“As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.” – Chanakya

Dr. Gregg Alexander, a grunt in the trenches pediatrician at Madison Pediatrics, is Chief Medical Officer for Health Nuts Media, directs the Pediatric Office of the Future exhibit for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and sits on the board of directors of the Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP).

News 5/3/12

Olmsted Medical Center (MN) extends its partnership with MED3OOO through 2017.

Practice Fusion launches an API that allows any laboratory to connect directly to its EMR and send lab results using standard HL7 data files.

From Wednesday’s HIT Policy Committee meeting:

• The Medicare and Medicaid MU programs have paid EPs an estimated $1,671,000 through the end of April.
• RECs have now enrolled more than 40% (132,000) of all primary care providers in the country; 50,000 of those are in practices with fewer than 10 physicians.
• Drug formulary, immunization registries, and patient list are the most popular menu objectives for EPs.
• Of the 62,807 EPs that have attested, 258 were unsuccessful initially. All but 99 of those have successfully resubmitted.

Navicure announces it has added 344 new practice locations to its client base during the first quarter of 2012, a 112% increase over Q1 2011 bookings. The company also reports its first quarter revenues were up 24% from a year ago.

Federal officials charge 108 doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers with almost half a billion dollars in fraudulent Medicare billing during a “nationwide takedown” on Wednesday. HHS suspended or took other administrative actions against an additional 52 providers for “credible allegations of fraud.” Officials have so far arrested at least 87 individuals.

athenahealth earns a spot on Boston Business Journal’s 2012 list of Best Places to Work.

Sermo partners with TheVisualMD, a producer of visual health content, to offer video and other media tools.

West Tennessee Bone selects SRS EHR for its 11 providers.

Anthem Blue Cross (CA) rolls out the Availity information network at no charge to physicians, giving them access to patients’ eligibility and benefits and the ability to submit and monitor claims online.  Physicians will also have access to CareProfile, Availity’s claims-based EMR, which provides 24 months of a patient’s most recent medical history.

A JAMA-published study suggests that text messaging, electronic reminder devices, and pagers might improve medication adherence in the short term, but the long term effectiveness remains unclear.

E-mail Inga.

News 5/1/12

General Accountability Office (GAO) examines CMS’s EHR incentive program and offers recommendations to improve processes to verify providers have met program requirements:

• Establish time frames for evaluating the effectiveness of CMS’s audit strategy for the Medicare EHR program.
• Evaluate the extent to which CMS should conduct more verifications before making payments for the Medicare program.
• Collect at least as much information from Medicare providers who are participating in the program as it does from Medicaid providers during attestation.
• Offer states the option of having CMS collect Meaningful Use attestations from Medicaid providers on their behalf.

HHS agreed with the first three recommendations, but disagreed with the fourth.

The board of directors of Allscripts elects Dennis Chookaszian its new chair. The former CEO and chairman of CNA Financial Corporation joined the board in September 2010. The board also authorized the repurchase of $200 million in Allscripts common stock. After dropping 36% Friday, Allscripts stock inched up almost 8% Monday, closing at $11.10.

Mr. H, along with readers, have provided a great deal of commentary on the recent Allscripts turmoil. If you are an Allscripts ambulatory client, I’d love to hear your perspective (and will keep your impressions anonymous, of course.)

Orthopaedic & Spine Center (VA) expands its use of White Plume solutions with the addition of the AccelaMOBILE mobile charge capture app.

MedAptus selects Intelligent Medical Objects’ Problem IT technology to integrate into its Professional Charge Capture solution. The combined solution will provide clinicians with rapid diagnosis search when completing charge documentation using the ICD-10 code set.

Boston Business Journal names eClinicalWorks to its Pacesetters Powerhouse Elite in recognition of its 148% growth over four years.

The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce names CareCloud CEO Albert Santalo winner of its 2012 Technology Entrepreneur of the Year award.

E-mail Inga.